this is my fourth year here as the speaker, in their conference organizer assures me he is going to keep having me back until i get it right, so i look forward to many more years with you. freedomfest fargo he asked me to speak specifically about my new book which is "the secret of shelter island" money and what matters, and i am pleased to say that the book is currently on

"the wall street journal" business best-seller list but it is a bit of an irony because it really is almost nothing about business or investment in the book, which those of the topics i usually write about. this is not a book about how to get rich. this is a book about how to be rich. if you are wondering what the differences, that is exactly what i'm going to talk about you this morning so we will cover that in some detail. the book is essentially a collection of essays that i wrote on how to live a richer, more meaningful life. you might begin by thinking, what makes my ideas on the subject of valuable? i am pleased to say to begin with they are not my ideas for the most part. our species that have a couple millenia to figure out how best to lived and the best ideas on the subject or not new. as ralph waldo emerson said 150 years ago on my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.

moot what i have done in this book is essentially surveyed many the greatest thinkers of all times going back to aristotle and stick to this, confucious, marcus aurelius, going from history, thomas jefferson, albert einstein, bertram russell n.t. contemporaries writers today. in fact several luminaries who have been here in freedomfest including charles murray, michael sherman and others. most of these essays originally appeared in an e letter that i read called spiritual wealth and if you are interested in checking it out you can go to spiritual wealth.com. the letter is free if you want to sign up for kooi don't famu horse then you any, sell your e-mail names. people often ask me what the mean exactly by spiritual wealth? here is the way i see it. everything in your life that you are grateful four, that you can put a price tag on, and your home, darcars, your bank

accounts, your stock portfolio, your golf clubs, your elvis memorabilia, all those things cycle material wealth and everything you appreciate that you can't put a price tag on, your health, your family, your friends, your community, fly-fishing, looking at the stars at night, watching the sunset over the blue ridge mountains, all those things i call spiritual wealth. there are people in this world who were very rich materially but impoverished spiritually and their people that are wealthy from a spiritual standpoint that are impoverished materially. to live the best of both worlds you have to have a balance of material and spiritual and that leads to what i call to wealth. latta people's me how i got started writing on this progress. there are a number of reasons i decided to do this. one is quite frankly i was looking for new challenge. i have been writing investment commentary as a full-time

financial writer for gore for nine years for almost 25 years now and i got to the point where i felt like i could write in busman commentary in my sleep and in fact some of you who acted on a couple of my stock recommendations last year might have thought i did exactly that. but i got a kind of a friendly nudge or not so subtle nudge the should say at an investment conference in phoenix a couple of years ago. this was the summer of 2007. we just experienced a five-year bull market, my letter to oxford communique was ranked the top investment letters of the country by the colbert financial digest and i just given a talk to a roomful of my subscribers and i was out chalabi in this attendee came up to me and buttonholed me. he walked up to me and said money, money, money. you have made me a lot of money over the years the let me ask you, do you ever think about anything else? at first i thought he was kidding. but egestive there in front of me, wide-eyed waiting for an

answer and i remember thinking to myself i wonder what i have sedar done to make this guy think guy met says with money. i write about seven columns a week about interest rates, currencies, the stock market come hedge funds, takeover candidates, asset allocation, how to increase your returns, reduce your risk, avoid high costs, reduce your taxes and he was thinking i was obsessed with money to the exclusion of everything else. of course i am not the kind of person who says that money doesn't matter. i don't think that is realistic. i think we all know money determines the kind of neighborhood living, the quality of schools your children can go to, if you need a doctor it can mean the difference between a good doctor and an amazing doctor. if you need a lawyer they can mean the difference between having an ambulance chaser in the best representation money can buy.

money is freedom they give you choices because in my view no one is truly free who is a slave to his job, his overhead, his creditors or his circumstances. money is the most egalitarian force in society. think about it. doesn't matter if you are old or young, black or white, tall or short, or straight, it doesn't matter what you are. if you have money left power in the best sense and money is freedom. if you have financial freedom you can do what you want, where you want, with whom you want so i think the pursuit of financial freedom is a worthy goal and i take my job as an investment analyst seriously because people are out there counting on my advice. but it is important as money is, it certainly isn't the most important thing and my book is about the pursuit of the good life, the search for meaning in what it means to be truly wealthy. so they are actually consist of

over 60 essays on various topics so what i will do is give you a bit about whitman sampler of some of tough as i talk about in the book. let me start with the state of the current economy. as we all know this has been the worst economy since the great depression. gdp growth is negative, the economy, we are seeing 26 year record unemployment. we are still losing a half million jobs a month and credit is tight and as the-- investment is down in consumer confidence is in the cellar and the housing market seems to be in a death spiral. the u.s. automakers are on their knees and stock market had its worst year since 1931. welcome to the great recession. i am not trying to be glib because there's a lot of pain and suffering out there and there's nothing funny about losing your job or seeing your stock portfolio get a serious bear cub are watching your 401(k) turning to a tool one k. but to the extent the downturns like the current one calls us

two, to the extent it shakes up the status quo, it causes us to reexamine our goals and priorities and that in itself tancretti enormous opportunities opportunities to reflect about what you really have in one of the things i'm going to do, i am going to convince you or certainly hope to convince you that by the end of my talk you are going to feel like one of the wealthiest people who has ever lived. you are one of the wealthiest people that is ever lived. you are so fortunate you make the powerball winners look like second-class citizens. you may not feel that way after the belly flop the real-estate market and stock market have recently done but i'm going to do my best to convince you otherwise. i want to start off by talking about one of the things that got us into this economic slump and that is something i call affluence up. it is a virus in society that causes people to warburton simm, try to live beyond their means and that in turn lead said that in the sidey and waste, causes

stress and the stress leads to stomachaches, headaches and heart conditions and even mild depression. you can shorten your stay on the right side of the days. i don't mean to sound like the national school. in the consumer activities two-thirds of the economy and we are all libertarians here. if someone wants to devote his life to pursuing more, more, more that this is right. but, as john maynard keynes said, better the man should tyrannize over his bank balance than his fellow citizens and i'm not immune to the occasional bout of it myself. i can't walk by a bookstore or record job without being sucked in and every time i leave barnes & noble, the clerk behind the counter asked me the same question, would you like is to double bag that for you? we all have to consume to survive but the thing is that madison avenue has become all pervasive. every day we are bombarded with newspapers, magazine

advertisements, billboards, radio and television commercials that are blasting trump of volume and advertises of that much more sophisticated. they have actually used mri scanners to map the human brain to find the pleasure centers, and advertisers are now creating products and marketing that stimulates the production of dopamine. it has gotten to the point where psychologist routinely talk about what they called retail therapy where people go shopping just award of boredom or the blues, which is a short-term fix because when a credit card bill comes then you will need more retail therapy. it is normal to want to better our material conditions but the relentless quest for more ultimately undermines the quality of life. i think we all know successful lives are built, not bought and an over consumptive lifestyle ultimately limits our choices. i think it was bertram russell this said it is preoccupation with the sessions more than anything else that prevents us from living freely and nobly.

the fact of the matter is to many consumers were chasing a image of success, trying so hard to keep up with the joneses. they had to have the fleshiest cars, most expensive jewelry, a mansion in a gated community but you know if you can afford these things fine but if it is a grind, a struggle, if your kids are asking where is dad, could it possibly be worth it? as the great philosopher bob dylan said, what is success? a man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what it wants to do. you can't do that if you are working hard to pay for the things you have already bought and the truth of the matter is to many people are into deep and i will give you a perfect example. a few months ago i was playing golf with a friend who happens to be an attorney and while riding in the car he was telling me how much she detested his job. i said, why?

you have to understand what i do. i write these nasty letters on behalf of my clients and we get nasty letters back and i have to respond to their letter with another lastly-- nasty letter. denman mike allen sis how much he is running billable hours he starts to get nafta with me and the whole business has just kind of nasty. so, i said what you do something else? if you could have seen the look on his face he would have thought i asked him, why don't you stop breathing, because he goes you don't understand. i have got a big house, we have too big cars, my wife and i take big trips, she runs the big bills. what my going to do? i don't know but it sounds like a big mistake to me because, the truth of the matter is he can't imagine himself getting out of the situation he is in in part because he can afford the drop in money and probably status at least temporarily to change in jobs would until. the problem with this is it the luedke spend doing what you love

is entirely different than putting yourself out to bid to the highest bidder the only we can say that makes no difference is to say your life makes the difference. i worked on wall street for 16 years and as most of you know i am sure, i happen to be in any good time with generally rising markets. after 16 years i had grown bored with the industry. i will never get tired of wrestling with the financial markets. they are endlessly fascinating but that is not what your job is. your job is to have conversations with their clients about their accounts day after day. i was getting bored with it and started thinking about leaving. when i talk to my colleagues they thought i had absolutely lost my mind. one fellow came up to me and he goes, green, nobody gets to where you are in this business with all these clients, all of these assets and all of these these coming in in just walks away. if you leave you are going to regret it for the rest of your life.

but i did leave and i didn't regret it for one minute because i take a huge pay cut but the know what? i had been handcuffed to my machine and telephone for years and i was free to work for everyone and write about what everyone. you can make a change like that even though until phyllis money if you've done the right thing. the question i say is, look at the path you are on. does it in large you or diminish you? if you feel like it diminishes you, could you possibly be on the right track? joseph campbell you say follow your bliss. if you follow your bliss you will find yourself on a track that has been waiting for you and a life that you should be living is the light you are living. i think we all have to experiment with their lives from time to time and take risks. the british historian art collins would put it best. he said come a perfect freedom is reserved for the man who lives by his own work and that work does what it wants to do. if you work a job and pursue a

career or you can choose a vocation but in over consumptive lifestyle limits those choices. >> kian consumption i'm going to move to an entirely different subject, which is eating. a few years ago i was in france and i bumped into one of my colleagues, a filmmaker and writer. he was telling me that he had an employee in his office to a just come back from his first trip from the united states. dias me, what was the biggest, what was your biggest surprise in america? he turned to me and said i can't believe you eagen your cars. [laughter] we got a big chocolate of this because in france eating is a sacrament. we yvgeny short lanchester have fresh bread, good wine and time enough to enjoy it but it is a very different thing than driving down the highway with the quarter pounder and fries in your lap, a soft drink large enough to have an undertow

sloshing around in the cup holder, your fingers between bites so you don't get greece on the wheel. i am kidding of course a we don't really eat this way, do we? get ready to cringe. the american culinary institute did a study that found among 18 to 50-year-old americans, roughly one-fifth of paul eating takes place in the car. significant percentage of the rest takes place in front of the tv. if that is the way most of my fellow americans want to take their meals, of course i would not call the meals as much as eating occasions but if that is how we choose to take our nutritional input every day all i can say is the bhola fronts because, i am going to read a bit from my book and you will know what i think. phasic, the french are smarter than us when it comes to leading. servatius the rarely cmaq, the consume most of their food it meals with others, they eat smaller portions and don't come

back for seconds, they also lingers spending more time eating than we do. with these tavis together and you have the fool culture in which the french consume fewer calories yet enjoy them far more. in his book, in defense of food michael pollen writes, we forget historically levee to four great many reasons other than biological necessity. food is also about pleasure, community, about family and spirituality, about a relationship to the natural world and expressing our did he for gillis lungs eamonn civin taking mills together eating has been as much about culture as it has been about biology. it is at the dinner table with socialize and civilize our children teaching the manners and the art of conversation. at the dinner table pence can determent forsen side is, can enforce social norms about greed and let me in ways. the shared mail elevates eating from a mechanical process for fueling the body to a rich willis family and community for mere animal biology to inactive

culture. in the modern world, agriculture and capitalism have succeeded almost too well. we have more food, more affordable prices than ever before and we forget that iraq must have human history people devoted most of their daily lives to growing, harvesting, preparing, hunting meals, and for millions in the third world they still do. if we eat mindless and experience say this connection we forget everything on our plate was once alive. in fact if you listen to michael shermer speaking he will tell you if you are related to everything on the plate, even the things in the sellable so you don't want to miss him talking about darwin this afternoon. you can take their cues from the french. you can enjoy the company and savor the meal and if you really don't have time for that, then all i can say is don't forget to buckle up.

so, eating, something that is a spiritual connection that we sometimes fail to think about. let me talk about another subject which is close to spirituality and that is the subject of giving. most of us at some point in our lives, if we have been successful in business, successful investing we start to think seriously about giving, not just cutting a check for someone who needs a donation. we want to be a thoughtful, perhaps the systematic ever. that raises a lot of questions. who do give your money to, when do you give it, why do you give it, how much should you give? two of my favorite nonprofits are the cato institute, which is here, george will calls cato the foremost defenders of freedom in the country, the foremost defenders of freedom is certainly a mission to be admired, contribute to. i also give money to the international rescue committee, a great humanitarian

organization founded by albert einstein. the irc is there with food, water and medicine and health care and education and great private group does a wonderful job. in fact if your interested in learning more you can visit the irc luff bob orr to learn more about the mission. getting back to this question what is the right way to give and again, i am not the one that has the answers. if you look back through history there has been wonderful things read about the art of philanthropy and one person who wrote a whole code of giving was moses, who lives back in the middle ages. he said they are actually eight grades of charity and i will tell you what there. number one to give reluctantly, two to give cheerfully but not adequately, three, to give cheerfully inadequately but only after being doused. for, to give cheerfully, adequately henniger own free will but to put it in the recipients' hands in such a way

as to make him feel less there. five, to let the recipient know who the donor is but not the rivers. six, the no who is receiving your charity but to remain anonymous. to have neither the donor nor the recipient be aware of the other's identity. and eight, to dispense with charity altogether by enabling your fellow humans to have the wherewithal to earn their own living. so, that is sort of come and give a man a fish in the eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he will sit in a bowden drink beer all day. you are nina the original just not. one thing i have learned about giving in the past few years that it's been helpful, when i was the young man just of a college i used to go to an account to get my tax is done. the woman would always ask me, to want to make a $2,000 i.r.a. contribution? that was a limit at the time and also let the time to thousand dollars was all the money in the

world and i certainly was not going to sacrifice $2,000 for retirement that would take place in another lifetime. so i would always say no and then one day i figured out there is a fund company by the name of twip in the 20th century and they have no minimum policy for their i.r.a.'s so i divided to thousand by 12 and it turned out it was $166.66 a month so i duly paid off that amount to american century and i had to draft my checking account every month thereafter so was done automatically and i would have a $2,000 i.r.a. contribution of the end of the year. i basically forgot about this because relatively big that then began demotte money and i was watching my for a much more closely for the less the years went by and as the market kept filling up i was astounded to find this $166 a month turned into a six-figure sum in my ire coe what i am trying to do now is to reverse, it is hard for

all of us to write a big check even if it is to a worthy cause, but like the irc for instance will direct your credit card or your bank accounts that you get the tax deduction and the miles and you can have the money taken out every month, month after month and you end up giving more and it is less payments. it is the opposite of dollar cost averaging. however we give, and i certainly can't lecture on how to give or who to give to but the important thing is that not just we feel noble sentiment, what is important is what we do. what i have learned is well and may not always have happen is, it is always possible to give it in charitable giving is a part of living a meaningful life. i have got warren adamat book but i want to touch on that subject briefly. people have often said it seems like a long road between giving investment advice and talking about spiritual values but there is one very big commonality that

i found, and that is that the principles. for instance when i speak at an investment conference i know most of the attendees there want to know what is in store near term for the stock market, the bond market in the streets in currencies and so forth and i hate to disappoint them but i tell them anyway. i don't know and neither does anyone else, and that is not important fortunately because investment success does not come from following the right predictions. it comes from following the right principles. this is a-- gone fishin talks about. i tried to show people with your portfolio is worth $10,000 to $10 million what will be bored many years from now depends on six things, the amount of money you invest, the length of time lead compound, what your asset allocation is, the annual return of those assets, what you pay and expenses and what you pay in taxes, so can get that right you are way ahead of most people. the principles of investing are

well-known, by quality, diversified, minimize expenses and your taxes. you are light years ahead of anyone else if you do the simple things. this is true in virtually every aspect of life. imagine a bridge or tunnel or a skyscraper built without using proven principles of design or construction or building materials. if you are a classical composer you are free to compose beautiful music. view bostom there to listen to a total masterpiece. if you are a golfer, if you want to be a great offered you can practice do you will not reinvent the golf swing. you are going to use this grip and stance, a keeper head down, your left arm straight, your left elbow tucked in. how do i know that? people are viking go proser braunstein andrews before columbus discovered america. principles are the collective

wisdom of our entire species. we have principles of law, the principles of health, nutrition and exercise to help us live longer. we assign to the principles that help this desert the nation of the world and then we have spiritual principles that guide our lives or should. when people here i have written spiritual wealth they often say what religious you are you trying to promote? i'm not trying to promote religious thinking. my goal was much more modest. i'm trying to promote thinking. what i think people should consider is the core principles underlying all of the world's religions as well as the great secular philosophies from confucious in the east, aristotle and the west. what are those principles? we can all take them off, honesty, compassion, tolerance, justice, perseverance, humility, charity, gratitude and human

beings are seeking creatures. if we don't find meaning we quickly fall into despair. and that there's an epidemic of depression that evolved in part from a lack of meeting. before you think of joining tomacruz for an afternoon in lila lint let me clarify myself. there certain people who suffer from a chemical imbalance that can only be helped with pharmaceuticals. there people who suffer from reactive depression, if they have been suddenly laid off or lost the loveland, it is generally short-lived but there are millions of americans who suffer from a lack of meaning in their lives. they don't know what they are living for. this by the blandishments of popular culture is not happen is that most people see, it is a life of meaning so in some sense we are spiritual seekers. you may think that, you may review the ten commandments or the sermon on the mount or the four new bull truce of budhism

or the five pillars of islam, but some infrangible said of spiritual principles, but we are all spiritual seekers and to give you an idea, david foster wallace at a commencement address said these words, anything else you worship aloma certainly yi wu life. if you wish of money and things, then you will never have enough. worship kiron body and uvn sekulow lower and he will always feel ugly and when time and they'd start showing you will die a million deaths before the plan you. worship power, you'll feel weak and afraid. you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear of bay. worship. alaikum of being seen as smarts u.n. the feeling stupid, a fraud always on the verge of being found out. on some level most of us understand this. is codify dinner myths sindh proverbs and africanisms and are classic novels and their great films. society and culture are tagging

as the other way. we have a wonderful cabalistic system that provides as with everything we need but it also comes as. it is telling us what we could have, how we could look, how we will fill when we find the choir the latest, greatest and most fabulous get into the mention it is new and improved? so what i'm saying is modern economy does a wonderful job of meeting their needs but if we lose our way, fortunately the great spiritual principles are always there like fuller is suing us the way to north and it may not the glamorous but it is true and 150 years ago ralph waldo emerson and his famous essay on self-reliance with these words. can bring you peace but yourself. nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles. so, to the extent that we have that we are living in principle

centered life we tend to be satisfied with their lives. to the extent we are not, we tend to lack meaning. if you need some help, i did polk a short prayer in my book to help you a long way from john maxwell. it says dear lord, so far today i am doing all right. i have not got the, lost my temper, ben selfish or self indulgent. i have not want, cursory and chocolate however i am going to get out of bed in a few minutes. [laughter] i will need a lot more help after that, amen. anyway, what i'm getting at is i think what a lot of this lack is a sense of gratitude. actually i'm going to say a few words about that and then i will open to the floor for questions and comments because i know some of you may have things you want to at our challenge, and that is fine. i said earlier on i was going to make you feel wealthier as a powerball winner.

one of the ways it will do that is to put things in perspective. this is a quote from a biologist, richard dawkins in his book unweaving a window. he says, we are going to die and that mixes the lucky ones. most people never going to die because they are never going to be born. the potential people who could've been here in my place but who will impact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of the sahara. >> doesn't born ghost include greater poets in keetch, side is greater than newton. we know this because they said a possible people allowed by air dna so massively at numbers the fed of actual people. in the teeth of the stupefying august, it is you and i in their ordinariness that are here so did an interesting perspective to think that the vast majority people are unborn. but, the writer, bill verizon, who white detest because he is

so good, he has a different perspective on it. i have noted here in my book. i am going to have to look it up. i have had people comment that i said in the book, i helped by-- hit bill verizon. all writer should, if you don't know why read what he is written. i should've said of read everything he has written twice and i would have made it clear. i will find this. nothing like highlighting your own book, flagging.

i have quoted him so many times i have to look up which quote. page 167, that is going to be the winner. worth waiting for i assure you. in bill bryson's book a brief history of nearly everything, he takes a different perspective on this. he says you have been extremely, make that miraculously fortunate in your personal ancestry. consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, of time older than the oceans and rivers, every one of your forebears on both sides have been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce and sufficiently blessed by the then circumstances to live long enough to do so. not one of your. ancestors was quashed, devoured, drowned, start, stranded, stuck fest, untimely blended or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material

to the right partner at the right moment, nor to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result eventually, astoundingly and all too briefly in you. interesting and i just hope before i did this mortal quote i wrote one paragraph that could. there is another thing you've done right that you probably have not recognized or don't take the time to appreciate. besides the astronomical odds of you being here, inhaling and exhaling you also have the extreme good fortune of being born in the modern era. iran sisters just four generations removed would be astonished by all your advantages. unlimited food at affordable prices, the plagues that killed millions, measles, polio and rickets and smallpox eradicated, the in the back bringing in toil for most laborers and we forget that even 150 years ago virtually every but he was in farming or forestry or mining or

some type of backbreaking work. we have instantaneous global communication. we tickle this for granted but remember to the vast majority of human history nothing, neither news or people travel faster than a course and as far as our ancestors knew nothing ever what. gedi competes to the other coast in a few hours and the other side of the earth and a few days. we have hit, air, microwaves and dishwashers and so forth. the greatest accomplice, a compass mcgill times is taking place in the last century. the realized in 1900 the average american live to the age of 41 and part of that is due to the high incidence of death of birth. the high and the mortality rate but still. why do we live so much longer? because of the incredible events as in technology. we complain about the cost of health care but look at the quality health care. if you really want to delete

yourself to things that were better in the good old days, i have one word for you, dentistry. imagine a ear canal in the 1800's? living standards are the highest they have ever been not just for the rich a middle-class but also for the poor. in 1890 less than 1% of american households earned the equivalent of $75,000. today more than a quarter of them do. form of discrimination against women and minorities has ended which of course has been the norm throughout history, and we enjoy freedoms today, denied to millions around the world wrote history, political freedoms, economic freedoms, religious freedoms, personal freedoms and guess we are all here because the federal government has become a sprawling, metastasizing light and the needs to be beaten back with a stick. we need to speak their minds and

organize and voter own particular bombs of office bill the government will live under compared to what most governments have been in most places throughout time, we should be extremely thankful that we are living in the united states. what i am saying is if you want to start feeling wealthier, perhaps the first thing you need to do is to develop a more acute sense of gratitude. airs donald called gratitude the greatest virtue in the first. i think it means two things, number one having an appreciation for the life you were given in number two making a practice of looking at what is right in your life rather than what is missing. a credit teague makes you feel like you have enough. in gratitude leaves you in a state of constant deprivation. psychologist tells the this impossible to feel happy and grateful at the same time. incidentally, even in this topic the stock philosophers told us ways we could feel more grateful, something they suggested was a form of negative

annualization. book it the things you value the mazin spend a few minutes a day imagining what you don't have. a lot of people are going to tough times. even if you lost your job imagining losing your house. if you've lost your house, imagine losing your positions. if you've lost your positions, imagine losing the people you love. if you've lost the people you love loved, imagine losing your help. there's not one of us it could be worse off than we are today so in short positive-- this galatian elses cuba we want an negative mutualization elses get what we get so in the end perhaps the best there televise is the simplest and that is the attention, see, or rather cherished, chairs would you have before it is gone. thank you very much. i do libicki minutes for questions if you would like to

make them. if he would step up to the microphones i would appreciate that and i will be spending a few minutes in the back signing my book if the knee of you are interested. have i been amazingly thorough? we have someone-- if anybody has a question they can shouted out and i will pick repeated up here. >> i was wondering, you mentioned that philosophers proved that you can be grateful and feeling have been at the same time, and i am pre-paraphrasing. i was wondering if he could go into more depth to talk about specific philosophers or maybe ideas behind that because it seems like off the top of my head i feel like i could be an grateful about not getting a fellowship but happy about being with my friends are something like that, so i was wondering if

he could elaborate a little? >> i think it is the glass half full or is the glass half-empty? i could stand up here and i could talk about the specter of nuclear proliferation or terrorism or the fact that our troops are bogged down overseas, or party went to the whole litany of what is wrong with the economy and we all the personal situations in our lives that are not good. i'm not suggesting any one ignore these things. i'm just saying to the extent we focus on what is right with their lives instead of what is wrong, and feel like we are living in more meaningful life. it is easy to get bogged down. if everything can be going right in our lives but there's a couple and their issue that is what excesses those. i think this is part of human psychology to focus on what is wrong and our advanced as the species by realizing we are

dissatisfied and moving forward from there so people often spend their time thinking about their problems, molino for what they don't have instead of taking the time to appreciate what they do and they think it is a practice uft get into. you have to stop and think, what if i wasn't healthy, with the last time i give my children was the last time i would never kiss my children? those of the things we stop and think about the kmiec a big difference in your life and it is partly a matter of perspective. a lot of the ideas, this is not a how-to book. i don't give advice about how to live your life. it is a more a-- about how to live a richer more meaningful life and one of those ways is to be filled with a sense of gratitude. go ahead. >> thank you so much. this is very nice of you to talk. i have one little comment to share with you. gratitude is the attitude of the

beatitude. thank you. >> thank you. [applause] something very similar that stigler used to say embedded it is your attitude, not directed to that determines your altitude so very similar to what she said. >> i have a question. and one of your recent columns you talked about having moved to a new place and left pretty much everything behind and how that may be contemplate their relative importance of things and possessions and how easy-- do you want to elaborate on that a little bit? >> let me say that i recently moved from orlanda to charlottesville and this is something my wife and i dream about, are moving to the mehlman speak being a writer i can live forever i want, so we went to charlottesville and it is funny had bumped into a woman a few months after live there and she

goes, so your work for you to charlottesville? she goes, you have family here? i go, no. you have franzen charlottesville? i said no. who did you know before you moved here? i said that when and from a look on their face she looked like she identified someone in the federal witness detection program but charlottesville is a beautiful town. it is that tens of culture in the great music scene and that those restaurants and sits at the foot of the blue ridge mountains. is a fabulous place but when i wrote the column, because we weren't sure if we are going to stay in charlottesville are not rather than selling our house, we simply left their house in florida with all of our things and it in a rented a house, a friend's house in charlottesville and we have been there for several months. is amazing all the stuff that you have in your house that you feel like he can do without, that you haven't been able to give away or to sell at a yard sale and it is still in your garage, your attic and your guest bedroom and you never

think about it. it is funny how we get attached to these things without realizing that it serves no purpose so was my opening experience to move to a new house not have all that stuff and realize that we did not miss a one bit, so that was a bit of an awakening. go ahead. >> thank you alex. after listening to the lectures year, the last year-and-a-half it felt like the world was coming to an end but after this interview i already feel much better. thank you. [applause] >> thanks. i appreciate those comments and i have to say i am a libertarian ed heart. i think it is a sad thing the country was founded on having a government that protects their rights, and enforce contracts and the laws and the fence the shores and in a sense is mutated and has grown and become this metastasizing leviathan-- we

should stop and reflect of all the freedoms that we have achieved and in realized as much as we did test the effect of the government has grown and is an balton every aspect of our lives that still in the great scheme of things were so fortunate to be living in such a prosperous country, such a free country at this moment in history and if you read things that are constantly negative orkin planning, you will find yourself walking around with it from looking at the ground. the roddick column a few weeks ago about the fact that i was at the grand canyon a couple of years ago with a friend and there was of hoc that was circling above us. i said imagine that you he must have. my friend said to betty doesn't see it. i said what you mean? birds of prey have excellent vision. he said he has excellent vision but his eyes are focused like elezer on a mouse or a snake or a jackrabbit to provide his

most-- next meal. it kind of made me realize a lot of us are the same way. we are thinking about the deal, the contract, giving the kids to where they need to go and we are blind to the best of that surrounds us. it is worthwhile to take the time to stop and think about how fortunate we are and of course the media brings as the world through highly distorted blends. the media can't tell us about the planes the doan crash, the buildings that don't burn or the companies that are hiring so we get a distorted view of what is happening and it is when you take the time to count your blessings that you start to realize that everyone of us is that powerball when epic of the fact we are standing here right now, one of the most fortunate people that is what the face of the earth. greg easterbrook says, when you walk into a many markon by a better bottle of wine than the king of france frank 300 years

ago. we just don't stop to appreciate what we have sometimes so i think it is worthwhile to think about the bright side and my book is filled entirely with thought that i found inspiring, uplifting and they meant it as an antidote to the depressing and rattling news that we hear the newspaper today so i hope they take the time to read it and if you do i help you enjoy it. so, thank you so much. [applause] >> alexander green is the investment director of the oxford club and editor spiritual wealth. he is the author of "the gone fishin portfolio," get wise, get wealthy and get on with your life. this talk was part of freedomfest 2009. to find up more visit freedomfest.com.

>> rick perlstein, who lives in nixonland? >> in my book, the election of barack obama it is become an open question. the whole idea of nixonland is that we have to the chilean commensurate groups of americans who hate each other, left and right, red and blue. one side barely considers the of hassad american at all. and it begs the part of barack obama's appeal ortiz has a tentative deal was to transcend just the sort of thinking. now, whether that will work for not is really the open question of his administration. he did pass the stimulus bill with zero republican votes and he is still being called a

socialist, so it is a way to think about our history going forward. i was still living in that radically bifurcated, meacham alamode four crimination that we saw that evolved with richard nixon in the 1960's. >> so, how the evolved during richard nixon and was he partially was possible in your view? >> he was both, he didn't create the wave but the surf the way. basically, the '60s social movements became all the more passionate, sometimes even violent, lars swath of white middle-class america became very frightened that the normal expectations of law-and-order were being up ended, and richard nixon could have house that rage into political advantage of that ragin not only did he harbored but exacerbated it as a

political strategy. >> how? these for example, he argued privately, although some of the said they said it publicly, that they wanted to achieve a strategy a positive polarization. in other words, it is good to have a political discourse that divides the country into because of their belief that the republicans would harvest they decided to divide, so in other words, even though in much of his public rhetoric he would speak the words of unity that we expect our presidents to speak of the time, barely beneath the surface, he encouraged the idea that one group of americans believe that another group of americans weren't quite american adults. when coup this is the majority. the rest was these hippies and kids who want to tear down everything, all of those hard-working americans have built. >> was some of that rage in your view justified? >> absolutely.

>> why? >> i mean, a lot of what lebanon on the new left in the black power movement was juvenile and narcisistic, her aunt-- i tell a story in the book about abbie hoffman who was one of the most prominent antiwar activist. he was from the youth international party and i tell a story about how john wolinski made him a, sort of an ambassador between the city and the of the community on the lower east side in part of that was-- so abbie hoffman would take an inch of that debate the cups and in one story i tell the actually so baited a cop into arresting him that he literally smashed the display case in the precinct house that held the unit commendations, just because he could. we are talking about that level of childish this that doesn't

make it very easy for us to kind of body for together is the commonwealth, so it is when, it is when the range becomes undifferentiated and was directed at say senators who oppose the war, like edmund muskie. nixon tried to tie to the radical movement that things that very irresponsible. >> as a politician, do you respect richard nixon? >> he is the best. i mean, he was not quite good enough to bluff his way to full terms, but as far as his ability to find in discern the subterranean medz, boiling barely beneath the american like in speaking to those hopes and dreams, he was brilliant. he was brilliant at thinking

about what constituency could build for his politics, and one of the ways in which he was such a brilliant politician and one of the evidence is of it was he was not a very charming man. it is the paradox. he was a guy who people found very hard to get along with. he didn't seem to enjoy people yet he was still able to win the allegiance of millions of americans. >> this is your second book. your first book was on very goldwater and this is your second book on republicans and the bride, and you are working on it there. why so fascinated with the right? >> the thing that fascinates me, i am an unapologetic liberal and a political activist zero prague someone found my work useful and fair. i am fascinated by the fact that we americans share a nation with each other, even though we see the world in such different ways and we speak the same language, english, you know and we inhabit the same spaces but we have just

enough mutual comprehension, that we can kind of be voyeuristic onto one another's worlds and i just find that endlessly fascinating. why did these people think differently than i do? what do we have in common, why some people in the liberal? why do some people in the conservative? icahn said in a library and close my eyes and think about that for hours and call it a good day. steve is america unique in that respect? >> i think that america is unique in that its ideological direction seems more up for grabs them in a lot of places. americas this country where we never had an american aristrocracy. what binds us together is the bonds of geography but is set of ideas. we are always fighting over the

ideas. what this liberty mean? the social democrat on the left, a new dealer, of is the liberty means having enough food in your stomach to be able to take care of your family. conservative would say liberty means the government staying out of the private economy, no matter what. we are still having the same arguments with each other and almost wounded and 50 years into the experiment. >> has there ever been a time in your understanding of history rick perlstein that america has been united? >> we are always united and we are always divided. i think this to come of those two realities are kind of onslaught jewel tensions with each other. we could not have defeated fascism in world war ii have not achieved a remarkable degree of-- but a lot of that involved the carrying certain ways that we were this united, say around

raised that quickly rose to the surface after world war ii and in the 1950's as african-americans came back from world war ii and said we fought for freedom. leaders came back from world war ii and said we fought for way of life and suddenly we are at it again. it is the american condition. >> what is the book you are working on and what is your trilogy? >> i have call that the backlash trilogy. the first book was from 58 to 64. the second book goes from 1965 to 1972 and had just begun work on a book that i am tentatively calling the invisible bridge which is going to be about the '70s and the rise of earl reagan emmit cover the years from 1973 to 1980. >> you were here the organization of american historians annual meeting and you just participated on a panel on the conservative state of conservatism in america. why is the liberal are you

concerned with-- >> one of the reasons is because they have had such a dominant role in governing the country. sadly sense 2001, we have had until 2006 where the conservative president and the conservative congress. we had two terms of reagan that is where the action is. it is the real exciting story in american political the bill. why did a country that seem to be having to wait from a liberal consensus around the new deal ideas begin to lurch so aggressively to the right? and it is something that at this panel, it is hard to figure. it is fascinating to figure. >> as a political activist is it important for you to understand the right? >> sure, sure. my way of understanding the right is very much based in

empathy, and any political movement that helps the capture eight coalition they can achieve a majority let alone a governing majority in america which requires 60% these days because of the filibuster has to understand the mass of americans in the middle who donuts sincerely share any particular political allegiance that conservative ideas are attractive, and what is attractive about those ideas? why did they answer to people's normal aspirations and without understanding that, you can understand how to persuade people to the way of thinking politically that you find the greater good for the greater number, which in my case would be the social democratic tradition, the new deal tradition, the idea that a strong government, central government can deliver the most prosperity